BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – On Tuesday, a decision that will affect the future of Hoosiers everywhere will finally be revealed to a waiting world.

No, not the election day results. We’re talking about the top seed in the College Football Playoff. The rankings will be revealed at 7:00 PM ET and will be broadcast on ESPN.

For the first time ever, this will be must-see for Indiana football fans. Indiana’s unprecedented 9-0 start, plus the expanded 12-team field, put the Hoosiers right in the middle of the playoff discussion.

Indiana is ranked No. 8 in Sunday’s Associated Press poll, but that ranking has nothing to do with the CFP rankings. The CFP rankings are decided by a committee, similar to the NCAA Tournament selection committee for basketball.

Here are some basic rules you should know about how the field is compiled:

– The five top-ranked conference champions make ground. Four of them will receive steps in the quarterfinals. It is a virtual certainty that the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 champions will receive the four byes.

– The other seven teams are FBS major leagues and there is no limit on the number of teams that can be picked per conference. With the fifth conference champion likely to come from a ranking spot below 11th, the top 11 are actually making up ground.

– The eight teams that do not receive permits play the first round at campus sites. Serial heads no. 5-8 will host those games.

This is how the field is filled. Here are the CFP selection committee principles they use to select and seed the overall teams:

“The Committee will select teams using a process that distinguishes between otherwise comparable teams, taking into account:

– The power of the program

– Head-to-head competition

– Comparative results of regular opponents (without incentivized margin of victory)

– Other relevant factors, such as the unavailability of key players and coaches, that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or are likely to affect its postseason performance.

The committee consists of 13 coaches, student-athletes, college administrators and journalists.

Here’s how the voting process works, according to the CFP Selection Committee Voting Process:

– Each committee member selects their top 30 teams in the country. Teams listed by three or more members remain in consideration. At the end of any round of voting, teams may be added if three or more committee members wish to add them.

– Each member lists their best six teams. The six teams that received the most votes comprise the pool for the first ranking step, known as the “listing stage”.

– In the first ranking stage, each member will rank those six teams, with one point allocated to a first place vote and so on. The ranking of the members will be added up, and the three teams with the lowest total points will be the top three ranked teams. This process is repeated until 25 teams are ranked.

From there, the expected conference champions are identified for the top four seeds.

The CFP quarterfinals will be played at the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Peach Bowl. When possible, teams are assigned playoff quarterfinal games to the traditional bowl sites most closely identified with the conferences in which they play. So if Oregon were the No. 1 seed, they would be assigned to the Rose Bowl.

After that, the 5-12 teams are seeded in order. There is no provision to prevent conference-v.-conference matchups in the first round. So, in theory, Indiana could play Penn State in a first-round game.

There is no metric that the committee uses for selection. All types of data are available, but it is a subjective decision of each committee member.

Do you have all these? It is a subjective process, as are all committee processes. Here are some things to look for when the rankings are revealed:

1. How much is being undefeated worth?

This may seem like a silly question to ask. Why wouldn’t it be worth it to be undefeated?

Indiana is one of four Power Four conference teams with an undefeated record. One of them, Oregon, is from the Big Ten, and the Hoosiers and Ducks won’t meet unless they play in the Big Ten championship game. The other two undefeated are Miami of the ACC and BYU of the Big 12.

While Oregon is No. 1 in the Associated Press poll, there are one-loss teams that are given more value in the AP and coaches polls than the other undefeated teams receive. No. 2 Georgia and No. 3 Ohio State are one-loss teams to Miami, BYU and Indiana.

It will be interesting to see how the College Football Playoff committee looks at the resumes of the undefeated teams. Anyone can choose their own criteria, but what will matter most to the committee?

Will it be overall statistical excellence? Will it be the margin of victory? It will be what teams did you play? With major conferences, the need to analyze in-conference strength of schedule as well as out-of-conference strength of schedule is more important than ever.

No one should assume that an undefeated record writes an automatic ticket to a playoff spot. If you have any doubt, go to Tallahassee and ask a Florida State fan about how the committee treats undefeated teams that the committee perceives as flawed.

2. How will the selection committee assess the strength of the program?

As mentioned above, the strength of the program deserves its own space, given that Indiana is very vulnerable in that regard.

According to ESPN, Indiana’s current strength of schedule is 103rd out of 134 FBS schools — still the worst of all Power Four conference schools. The closest CFP contender to Indiana in the point rankings is Iowa State at No. 83. After that, Notre Dame is next at No. 75.

If strength of schedule is the number one protocol in the minds of committee members, as it is instructed to be, Indiana’s poor SOS number will put the Hoosiers under water, but to what extent?

What will be interesting is how the committee considers controllable versus uncontrollable factors.

For example, Indiana has no control over the Big Ten. Nebraska and Washington are the only Big Ten winning teams the Hoosiers have faced thus far, but it’s not Indiana’s fault it took the green light in terms of having favorable Big Ten opponents on its schedule. Does the Commission take this into account?

On the other side of the coin, Power Four schools have complete control over their nonconference slates. Indiana’s trio of Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte pales in comparison to nearly every contender Indiana has in the playoff race.

Indiana’s state of affairs is worse, considering Indiana dropped Louisville — now a top-25 team — to play Western Illinois. It was a decision made in 2023, but it could have a big impact in 2024. The committee will be aware that Indiana has deliberately weakened its schedule. Giving Curt Cignetti a pass on this — he wasn’t part of that decision — is not an outcome that should be assumed.

3. How does the Committee feel about the Big Ten collectively?

In response to claims of a weak schedule, some Indiana fans countered that a team like Penn State hasn’t beaten a currently ranked team, so why should the Hoosiers be treated worse than the Nittany Lions?

This is not the flexibility that people would think it would be.

On the surface, the Big Ten appears to be in great shape to get up to four teams in the 12-team field. Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana are all in the top 10 in the polls.

However, the committee will not look at things this way. Of the four teams, Ohio State will be the only one guaranteed to play all three by the end of the season. The Buckeye’s strength of schedule will be unassailable, but what about the others? How does the Big Ten bring teams up or keep them down?

Ten teams are at .500 or better in the Big Ten. Oregon has or will play five of them, with a big win over Ohio State as the signature win.

Penn State has or will play five, although Penn State lost its signature game to Ohio State. Indiana has or will play four of those schools. The Hoosiers’ fate likely hinges on its outcome at Ohio State on Nov. 23.

The committee can be predictive of what one might think will happen or assign rankings on what has happened. Given that it’s only the first ranking of the season, how the committee views those lower-tier Big Ten wins against similar ones in other conferences will be fascinating.

The good news for Indiana and the Big Ten contenders? None of the other conferences broke free to demonstrate their superiority. The bigger conferences have created quite a crowd in the middle of each league. How does the committee deal with all this?

The SEC’s best non-conference win was Texas’ win at Michigan, but that was dwarfed by the Wolverines’ fall from grace. Georgia also beat Clemson, but the Tigers were humbled at home by Louisville on Saturday.

In fact, the SEC could be hurt by one of its competitors — LSU — losing on a neutral court to Southern California, currently 2-5 in the Big Ten.

The ACC has Miami and possibly SMU, but two of its possible teams — Clemson and Pittsburgh — both suffered damaging losses on Saturday. The Big 12 has BYU — which beat both SMU and Kansas State — but little else. Iowa State and Kansas State both suffered damaging losses over the weekend.

Independent Notre Dame is also difficult to analyze. A road win at Texas A&M is impressive, but a home loss to Northern Illinois (now 1-3 in the Mid-American Conference) is hard to explain.